CD Chapter Twenty (Patreon)

It turned out it was only an hour or so before sunset, so Alpha and Mai Ley passed the time playing paladir, which was a card game similar to poker, but with more dragons. Mai Ley’s paladir-face was better than Alpha’s, so by the time the priestess stood and declared it safe for Alpha to depart, Alpha owed her nearly eighteen gold, in spite of playing for coppers. Mai Ley held out the bowl, which was apparently meant for offerings, and Alpha dropped the coins in, though her miserly heart flinched at the necessity.

Mai Ley opened the door, revealing a graveyard wearing its twilight robes of shadow. “I assume you know where the Temple is,” she said, not really asking, and Alpha nodded, then shrugged.

“I would, if I knew where we were right now.”

Amusement touched Mai Ley’s face. “You stand in the pauper’s graveyard. Those with no name, no memory, and no money lie restless beneath this earth. Where else would a vampire spawn?”

Shaking her head, Alpha pulled up her map of Bloodhaven. Maps in VO were surprisingly nuanced, and every player’s was different. Anyone could buy a simple map of an area from a resident NPC, but unless that NPC was part of a quest, nothing but the most obvious places would be marked on it. Occasionally it would even be wrong, intentionally or otherwise, and the only way to find out was to stumble over the truth.

Once a player had explored an area thoroughly, their map would be marked with quests, secrets, and notes regarding past and planned encounters. If the player then shared their map with someone else, the other player could use it to steal quests or treasures from the first, so while people readily led others through an area, maps were rarely shared.

Alpha had spent a great deal of time in Bloodhaven, but she hadn’t taken quests within the city itself in quite a while. In spite of the fact that the free city wasn’t considered a safe zone, like other cities, it was safer than the wild country surrounding it, and thus quest-lines inside its walls tended to be less profitable. Not to mention the fact that there were a hundred shops within easy walking distance, so no one needed a mule.

Still, her map was decent, and when it popped up in front of her eyes, she saw that the pauper’s graveyard was marked, though much of it was the shadowy gray that indicated she hadn’t actually been there herself. It covered a broad, sprawling area near what could charitably be called the ‘divine’ part of Bloodhaven. There were dozens of shrines, temples, and churches to dozens of gods of lesser and greater importance in the area, but the only one Alpha had ever entered was that of Vorus, her former god, so most of the others didn’t even indicate what deity they were devoted to.

Mai Ley reached a pale hand up and touched the map, which she shouldn’t even have been able to see. Color filled a section of the pauper’s graveyard, revealing a small, dark building surrounded by tiny graves.

Alpha turned to look at the priestess, mouth agape. “How did you-?”

No emotion touched Mai Ley’s face as she said, “You Travelers have few secrets from the Gods, Unsouled One.”

“You called me that before,” Alpha’s eyes narrowed, trying to remember. “What does it mean?”

Mai Ley lifted one shoulder in a minute shrug. “It is what you are. We who are native to this world spawn, live, die, and our souls return to the Chaos Pool, to return when Atae sees fit. Travelers spawn, live, and die, but then revive, more or less intact, and their bodies with them. One could argue that they are only souls, and their bodies are nothing but illusory substance. You, however, will not return. You, and all your kind, are bodies without the souls required to give them true, eternal life.”

Alpha grimaced. “Nice. Yeah, don’t call me that any more. At least not to my face.” She touched the map, and a little red X appeared in front of the dark building. “So, we’re here, and I need to get to here.” She traced a path to the largest temple in Bloodhaven. It was a place where anyone could pray to any deity, and where freshly spawned players would theoretically go to select a patron god. Theoretically, of course, because no one spawned in Bloodhaven, and by the time they were high enough level to get here, they’d already selected a god somewhere else.

More often, it was used when a player wanted a particular buff before setting out on a mission, so they denounced their current god and switched to the one they needed. Doing this very often led to rejection by some of the pickier gods, but most of them, especially the battle-oriented ones, just wanted people fighting in their names. Of course, players who did this never earned much favor with any particular god, either, which meant their buffs were smaller, and didn’t last long, but that kind of player wasn’t really the long-term planner type.

Mai Ley nodded, then transferred her impassive gaze to Alpha herself. She stared at the vampire for long enough that Alpha started to wonder if she’d forgotten to get dressed and was running around in her default undies. Resisting the urge to cover herself with her hands, she snapped, “What?”

That brow arched again, and Mai Ley delicately asked, “Do you plan to go out like that?”

Alpha gave in and looked down. She was still wearing the default light armor that all newbies spawned with. Which, come to think of it, was a bad idea. While she was technically fully clothed, this was almost worse than dancing through the streets in her skivvies. People who saw her would either assume she was weak, and therefore a target, or strong enough not to care what she wore, and therefore a challenge.

Before she could properly form the command, her inventory was scrolling past in front of her eyes, helpfully pre-sorted into things she could and could not use. It looked like her old heavy armor was out, though she could now wear the Enchanter’s Robes she’d been keeping until she decided if she wanted to go to the effort of auctioning them or just sell them to a shop. A few other, similar items were highlighted, and she sighed.

Glancing past the list hovering in front of her, she glared at Mai Ley. “Why didn’t you mention this earlier? I could have spent the last hour changing my gear, instead of losing at paladir.”

The priestess smiled serenely. “Atae thanks you for your generous donation.”

Alpha growled and pulled out some armor almost on instinct. Nothing fancy, that would attract attention. Nothing too basic, either, which would draw the eye in a different way. Shortly, she was wearing a mish-mash of green studded leather, brown leather pants, red knee-high boots, and a sweeping pastel violet cloak. Individually, they were all decent, but they certainly didn’t create a cohesive look. Anyone looking at her would believe she was a casual player who just wore whatever provided the best stats, didn’t want to invest the time and effort to get a full set, and didn’t have enough money to buy dye kits. Since that description fit all but the elite of Bloodhaven, she’d fit right in.

Throwing a final glare at Mai Ley, she started to turn away, flipping a hand up in a casual wave goodbye. Behind her, she heard the other woman clear her throat. Whirling, Alpha snapped, “What?”

Mai Ley tapped her lips meaningfully.

Alpha blinked. Her hand rose, and she fingered the petite points of her upthrusting fangs, which protruded past her lips. She had been trying to look as much as possible like half-orc Alpha, in hopes of frustrating whatever joke Amythyst was trying to play on her, but she’d ended up making it very apparent at even the slightest glance that she was something Other.

“Oh, dump cake,” she muttered. “I guess I’ll have to wear a cloak or something.”

Mai Ley offered a faint, bemused smile. “Have you looked at your skills, vampire?”

The skill tree popped up in front of her. Many of the branches were gray, including many of her basic Warrior class skills, and her orc racial skills, such as [Roar]. There were several new ones, however, and many of these were red, presumably indicating that they were vampire race skills. She skimmed them, and a few things caught her eye.

First, she now had true [Darkvision], instead of the more limited [Low Light Vision] of the orcs. That explained why she’d been able to see when she was inside her casket. The [Mesmer Eyes] skill she’d accidentally used on Mai Ley was there, too. It applied a Paralyze debuff to any one person or creature as long as she held their gaze, which could be useful in a one-on-one battle. She’d need more points in Intelligence to make it work on anything smarter than a stump, though.

She had a [Fear] skill now, which had a high chance of causing the Frozen in Terror debuff if successful, and it worked on groups. Again, though, she needed a lot more Intelligence, and Vitality, since it was an Endurance sink.

She frowned at something called [Turn Ally], which looked… complicated. It was only level one, and looked like she was literally supposed to bite someone to make them into some kind of servant. It had a very low chance of success, dependent on both her and her victim’s Intelligence and Wisdom, and if it failed, it would kill the person she bit. It was also one of the rare skills that had different effects on NPCs and players.

[Control Beast], [Blood Boost], [Blood Pack]... that one was gross. Basically, she could look at someone and see how many Blood Points they were worth, presumably so she could decide if they were worth eating - drinking? - or not.

And there it was, the skill Mai Ley was probably trying to get her to use: [Glamour]. [Glamour] allowed her to appear ‘attractive’ to other sapients for some period of time determined by her Intelligence and their Wisdom. Since most players who weren’t mages basically ignored Wisdom once it was past about twenty, which was the threshold at which merchants couldn’t openly lie to them any more, the skill should be effective against most people.

The most important part of the [Glamour] skill, however, was that it let her conceal her race. Since the viewer would see whatever they found most alluring, only people who thought vampires were romantic would see her as she really was, and even they would see only the ‘best’ traits of vampires in her.

Alpha curled her lip in disgust at the very idea of using a skill to make herself attractive to basically everyone. She didn’t want people to find her appealing. That was the whole point of creating hulking half-orc AlphaOmegadon. She wanted to be left alone, and if she went out using a skill like [Glamour], she’d have drooling teenage boys tying themselves in knots trying to get her attention.

“No,” she said, firmly, closing the skill tree. Opening her inventory, she pulled out an eggplant-colored robe with puce trim. It was hideous, but she’d mainly dismissed it because the violet one had better stats. Now, however, she threw it around her shoulders. Tugging the deep hood forward over her face, she glared at Mai Ley, daring the priestess to say anything.

Mai Ley just nodded. “It will do. I suggest you get used to the idea of using [Glamour], however. You will not always be able to hide in your anonymity.”

Wanna bet? Alpha thought sarcastically, but she just nodded, turned on her heel, and strode off toward the temple.